Fearless: How to Conquer Fear ForeverНамуна

DAY 2 — When God Says: I Love You!

What is this perfect love that drives out and banishes all fear?

Perfect love is love that you can’t stop. There’s nothing you can do to gain it. And there’s nothing you can do to lose it. God’s love is free. It’s nothing you can work for, earn, or deserve. Perfect love is telios agape, in Greek, which means total and complete unmerited love. There’s nothing you can do to add to it or take away from it because it’s based on God’s character and His promises, not our character or our promises.

Revelation 1:5–6 says, “He loved us, He washed us, then He made us kings and priests.” Notice, God doesn’t love what was washed. He washed what He loved. He loved us first! Then He washed us. Then He made us kings and priests!

We live in a fearful world and generation. When you awaken to God’s perfect love towards you, it casts all the fear from your life. You don’t have to drive it out. Love does.

God’s love isn’t based on what we can do, because it’s His love—it’s perfect.

If you’re always performing to please people or receive their love or approval, you’ll always be operating in the fear that perhaps you won’t receive their approval if you don’t perform well enough. But there’s just nothing we can do to earn or lose God’s approval.

God’s love is perfect for three reasons. When God says, “I love you,” He means three things:

1. “I’ll never break My promise to you.” God bases His promises on His love, not on how we perform. Love is an unbreakable promise from God. All we have to do is focus on His goodness and love, then fear will leave. For example, 2 Timothy 2:13 tells us, “Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” This delivers us from the mindset that it’s all up to us.

2. “I will never leave you or forsake you.” This casts out the fear of being alone or lonely. He will never leave you out or cast you out. Today’s culture seems to have what I like to call, Dixie Cup Love. This is where people treat others and relationships as if they are disposable. God is not like that! In the book of Hosea, God tells a prophet to love a harlot—even when she returns to her harlotry.

3. “I will never remember your past.” God doesn’t remember our past. He doesn’t cover it. He washes it away. We’ve all had a fear that our past will be brought up. But God’s love casts out that fear. Hebrews 8:12 says, “And your sins & your iniquities, I will remember NO MORE.”

In tomorrow's devotional, we are going to learn about why the problems in our lives are not the real problems. We will also discover the secrets to overcoming them all!